


up to me

by mildlydiscouraging



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Bittersweet, Emotions, Fluff, M/M, Pointless, Season/Series 02, like a candy where the gooey center has gone slightly sour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-03-30 07:52:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13947096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging
Summary: The problem with no one ever listening to you is that you never learn how to shut your mouth.Or, Accidental Oversharing with Adam and Caleb





	up to me

**Author's Note:**

> takes place uhhhhhhhh toward the end of the first time they were together, like immediately before episode 22 if i had to be specific

It's a really good thing, Adam finds himself thinking, that a majority of the time there's not anyone looking at him, because he really can't stop making the most ridiculous faces.

It's just that sometimes he gets to thinking about how crazy his life is now, and the more objective he gets the crazier it sounds, and he can't help it, the disbelief just has to come out. In four months he went from cliche gay, nerdy loner to being deliriously happy and dating the quarterback who also has superpowers. What.

There's just this complete disconnect in his head, a canyon of cognitive dissonance between the Adam of last year and the Adam of now. It leaves Adam in this weird haze (a good one, a really good one, warm and soft focus) but sometimes when he goes to bed he thinks that when he wakes up this will have been a dream.

And honestly? It would make total sense. Things like this don't happen to people like him. The emo gay kid with an unfortunate and cliche crush on the hot jock doesn't actually get to date him, and said jock doesn't turn out to be a giant dork, and definitely doesn't have superpowers, although, to be honest, the whole thing does make more sense if it's in a fictional world with real superheroes, and wouldn't _that_ be cool—

But it just doesn't happen. Stuff like this doesn't happen to people like Adam. There's just no way. It's not like his wildest dreams come true or anything but it's pretty damn close. Like, he'd never admit it out loud, but...

"I had a crush on you in middle school."

Well shit.

Adam's own voice shocks him out of his monologue and back into the present, into his living room, where he's sitting on the opposite side of the sofa from Caleb, doing homework and definitely not getting increasingly introspective.

"No, no no no," Adam starts. He's already looking at Caleb, apparently, possibly having zoned out in the process of watching Caleb make ridiculous faces at his math homework, so he sees when Caleb registers the words and tries to cut him off. "You didn't hear that, I didn't say anything, don't—"

But it's too late; even as Adam props up his history textbook in front of his face, he can tell that Caleb is grinning like the evil maniac hellbent on ruining Adam's life that he is. Jerk.

The fact that Adam easily goes along when Caleb pushes back down the book has nothing to do with how ridiculously hot he is. It's just that the book is heavy. Yeah.

"You had a crush on me in middle school?" Caleb asks, like he doesn't already know that Adam is quickly dying of embarrassment.

Adam rolls his eyes as exaggeratedly as possible (his go-to defense mechanism, as Caleb well knows judging by the way his grin widens impossibly) and sighs before closing his book.

"Maybe," he concedes, and Caleb laughs.

When Caleb retreats a little back to his side of the sofa, Adam kicks out at him. When he misses, Caleb laughs again.

"That's so embarrassing," Caleb says, mirth still in his voice.

"Shut up!" Adam unfolds his arms to grab the book and throw it at Caleb. It lands uselessly in his lap, but Adam counts it as a success anyway. "We're dating, of course I had a crush on you."

"Yeah, but middle school? Oh my god, I bet you wrote poetry, didn't you? Please tell me you did, you so totally did."

Caleb with his stupid face and his stupid smile raises his stupid eyebrows and Adam's going to kick him in the stomach if he doesn't stop smiling so much.

"It wasn't a thing," Adam insists. "Everyone has crushes in middle school, shut up."

"But they don't have the same crush again later," Caleb points out. "You _double_ crushed, that's _way_ worse."

To that, Adam has no response. He's not wrong, per say.

"It wasn't a _thing_ ," Adam says again, but with slightly less conviction.

Caleb is suddenly a lot closer, having scooted forward into the middle of the sofa some time during the conversation, and when he comes to a stop Adam folds his legs under himself, unconsciously mirroring him.

"It wasn't..." Adam sighs to buy a little time. "I don't know, it wasn't a big deal, it happens. The second time was different, okay? It's not like I was totally in love you in the seventh grade."

"Are you saying that you are now?" Halfway through the sentence Caleb goes from teasing to serious, and for a moment they just stare at each other. Adam knows that he feels scared, and so he knows that Caleb knows it too, but if he didn't know any better Adam would say that Caleb looks a little afraid too.

The moment hangs, long enough for Adam to wonder why Caleb would be scared too, before he finds it in himself to say, "At least I didn't need my therapist to tell me that I liked you."

"Ugh." When Caleb screws his eyes shut and flops sideways against the back of the sofa, he lands close enough that Adam swears that the air between them is two degrees warmer. "I already regret telling you that."

"Well, now we're even."

Caleb turns to look at Adam, the expression on his face undecipherable. When Adam looks at him, he can't look away, and he gets the feeling that they're talking without words. He just doesn't know what it is they're saying.

After a minute (a long minute that's both infinite and way too fast) Adam stars to get antsy, at which point anything that replaces talking without drawing attention to itself sounds like a _great_ idea, and hey, kissing, that's an option.

It's not a very good kiss, to be fair. It's gangly and uncoordinated in a way it shouldn't really be after they've been doing it for months already. They're not quite close enough on the couch and so Adam ends up sort of up on his knees and leaning over precariously, and Caleb is unprepared, and the whole thing is just off slightly enough that it becomes less of an exercise in covering up the problem and more of one exacerbating the issue.

When Adam pulls away again, Caleb has that half-dazed look he gets sometimes after they kiss, which Adam normally would tease him for if it weren't for the fact that right now it's in some weird fusion with concern and no, yeah, that feels bad. All of a sudden there's a kind of chalk film coating his throat, dry and guilty. For some reason all Adam can think is how he shouldn't have said anything, never should have done anything to put that look on Caleb's face, but instead of saying any of that he shuffles back, eyes stuck on the gap between the sofa cushions. He can't help but read into the divide.

"Where'd that even come from?" Caleb asks quietly. He isn't talking about the kiss, and Adam still doesn't look up.

"I don't know, Caleb. You're the master of feelings, you tell me." His voice and the way he rolls his eyes (looking up at the ceiling quickly enough to glance over any chance of eye contact) say it's a joke, but Adam knows there's no fooling Caleb so he crosses his arms and drops the act almost as soon as he picks it back up.

Caleb frowns, and then he _frowns_. "I'm not the master of feelings," he says, "gross, shut up. And that's not what I meant. It's just— Whatever you were thinking was kind of distracting, like worried and happy and sad all at the same time, and I was about to ask what was wrong when you blurted that out."

"Oh." It's moments like these when Adam kind of hates Caleb's ability and the way it makes it impossible to deny what he's feeling or that he's feeling anything at all. He'd really rather just make the joke and move on, but communication is important and all that.

"That sounds about right," Adam continues after a bit too long a pause. Caleb's got his concerned face on, so Adam pokes him in the leg with his socked foot until he looks up to see Adam's nod. "It's cool."

"You felt sad, though," Caleb points out. "Or, not sad, more like... Sorry? Kind of guilty, like you were supposed to do something and you didn't."

Adam shrugs. It's not an answer at all in any way, and Caleb glares at him a little until Adam sighs and folds his arms, and then unfolds them, and then folds them again. He feels restless, whether or not that's an emotion per say, and hopes that if it's telegraphed then maybe he can avoid this conversation all together.

Of course, Caleb is really good at making Adam talk about things. Something about his face, Adam doesn't know. He's got this expression, concerned but not overbearing, that just makes Adam want to tell Caleb every thought that's ever gone through his head. To be fair, that could also be because Adam is maybe a little a lot in love with him. There's that too.

"I don't know," Adam says eventually, "I guess I just... Sometimes I don't know if this is all real." It's not really what he means to say, or an answer to the original question at all, but Caleb, of course, seems to at least get it enough to connect some dots.

"You had a crush on me in middle school," Caleb says again like it's at all an answer, and in a way it is.

"Yeah."

It won't be for a few months more, but eventually Adam will show him the poem, and they'll laugh about it, and talk about it, and that filmy feeling won't come back, and it'll all make sense. Eventually.

**Author's Note:**

> "but keaton, will you ever write something about these two that's not just them being unbearably cute and in love?" no! thanks for asking!
> 
> anyway i love adam so much and i love writing adam and not just because #kin but also because i can just ask my little sister, a sims 4 expert, what actions you get with the Unflirty trait and then i don't have to come up with anything myself. today we have Anxiously Confess Attraction, Reluctantly Look Into Eyes, and Unflirty Kiss.
> 
> also i'm firmly in denial that this show is ending and i have a substantial fic i'm near done with but will probably save until then so see you then. also thank you as always for reading, you guys are the best!!!!!!!!
> 
> title from [a softer world #1242](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1242)
> 
> (to be totally honest i'll probably come back to this in a couple days and make substantial changes, i'm not entirely happy with it but i needed the distraction lmao)
> 
> tumblr @[moonfullofstars](http://moonfullofstars.tumblr.com)  
> ko-fi @[mildlydiscouraging](https://ko-fi.com/mildlydiscouraging)


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